Students could get laptops by 2014

School officials impressed by results in N.C.

Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 11:46 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | The city school system could start assigning every child a laptop to take home beginning with the 2014-15 school year.

Representatives from Tuscaloosa City Schools recently traveled to Mooresville, N.C., to tour the Mooresville Graded School District and learn about its one-to-one computer program.

The Mooresville school system, which has 5,600 students, began giving students laptops to take home six years ago. When the program began, the school system ranked 56th in the state, and now ranks second in North Carolina in student achievement.

“We went to see how they implemented one-to-one computers, but when we got there, we found something quite different,” said Paul McKendrick, superintendent. “It was about the culture change in the school system.”

According to Mooresville teachers and staff members, giving each child a computer and using it to change instruction helped level the playing field for students, meaning there were no more “haves and have nots.” Instruction was easily individualized and the focus was shifted to integrating the technology to help the children succeed.

“The successes of what they’ve seen is remarkable,” McKendrick said. “There is no achievement gap with them. Every subgroup had their successes.”

McKendrick pointed out that demographically, the Mooresville school system is not unlike the Tuscaloosa school system. Approximately 30 percent of the students are minorities and 70 percent are white, McKendrick said. About 40 percent of the school system population are on free or reduced-price lunch.

“I was impressed that in every classroom, every student seemed engaged,” said board member Earnestine Tucker. “I was very impressed that teaching and learning was going on all over that classroom and that was being reinforced all over that school.”

The representatives from Tuscaloosa visited two schools, a fourth- through sixth-grade intermediate school and a high school. In that school system, all fourth- through 12th-graders are given Mac laptops that are used at school and also taken home, while third-graders are given iPads that are used in the classroom only. Pre-K through second-graders use Promethium boards in the classroom but are not given their own computers, said Chris Jenks, coordinator of instructional technology.

Each student also must pay $50 each school year as a use fee for having a laptop, and the computers must be returned to the school at the end of the school year.

The cost to take on a similar project in Tuscaloosa is not known because the school system could choose from a variety of types of computers and software, McKendrick said. The project will be paid for with funds the school system has set aside in a restricted-use fund, McKendrick said.

It’s something McKenrick said he’d like to see implemented soon.

“We would like to start with sending some teachers to Mooresville in July and get computers in teachers’ hands in the fall (for professional development),” McKendrick said.

Then, the school system can officially make a decision on which equipment to use by January 2014 and distribute computers at least to all middle and high school students by the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year.

But embarking on such a project will take the support and buy-in from parents and the community, said board member Marvin Lucas.

“The buy-in from parents is going to be key,” Lucas said. “Parents and the community have to be informed, understand and have a buy-in, and that’s a process.”

A recommendation will be made to the board regarding the one-to-one computer program at a later date.

In other business, the city schools will start registering students — including new and returning existing students — online this year using a program called Infosnap. Parents will be able to register their child online from home or can come to certain school locations to use computers and receive help in registering their student for school.

The online program will help streamline some of the information for students and will also be available in both English and Spanish.

The school system also approved approximately $4 million in construction/renovation projects at the city schools to increase their security and make them safer for students. The projects, which will affect every school and the central office, were discussed during executive session due to safety concerns of students.

The move to make the buildings safer for students locally was made following the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in December. The construction and renovation process regarding security at the schools should begin this summer.